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Families of alleged Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) fighters are being forced from Mosul into detention camps by the Iraqi military to receive “physiological and ideological rehabilitation”, Human Rights Watch has said.

While the liberation of Mosul from the jihadists has been applauded worldwide, human rights groups have warned that Iraqi forces and allied militias have been carrying out retributions campaigns against people they accuse of ties to Isil.

Iraqi forces have been accused of carrying out extrajudicial executions and Iraq’s Western allies have warned that such persecution will make it far harder to overcome the sectarian tensions that Isil exploited in the first place.

“Iraqi authorities shouldn’t punish entire families because of their relatives’ actions,” said Lama Fakih, the group’s deputy Middle East director. “These abusive acts are war crimes and are sabotaging efforts to promote reconciliation in areas retaken from ISIS.”

Iraqi officials have said that such camps are necessary to try to unwind some of the damage done to people living under Isil rule and to prepare them to re-enter Iraqi society.

The first camp near Mosul was opened at Bartalla, a Christian town outside of Mosul that was devastated by the jihadists, and is designed to hold 2,800 families. At least 10 women and children have died on the way to the camp or inside the camp itself, medical workers told HRW.

Most of the people brought there were women and children. Iraqi authorities said they would be screened and investigated for their ties to Isil before being allowed to leave.

Some of the families there said openly that their sons or husbands had fought with the jihadist group. But others appeared to have been victims of Isil’s brutal rule.

One woman said she had divorced in an Isil-run court last year but that the jihadist judge who presided over the case then took her a sex slave and kept her in his home.

He fled with his family as the fighting drew nearer but left her locked in the house, where Iraqi forces found her and assumed she was an Isil family member, she said.

Now she is being held at the camp along with other women and children.